


a thousand miles and poles apart

by wafflesofdoom



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, M/M, Robron Week 2018, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 17:45:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14141223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflesofdoom/pseuds/wafflesofdoom
Summary: the golden rule of spying: you never underestimate robert sugden. he’d been the best in the business, until he’d gone rogue - and well, aaron just wanted to know why the pride and joy of her majestys secret service had turned his back on his country.





	a thousand miles and poles apart

The snow was getting worse.

It was the ultimate, James Bond style cliche, wasn’t it? Aaron was neck deep in a mission that had consumed his life for close to three years now, finally nearing the end point of it, and he was getting a real Hollywood style setting for it - a log cabin, deep in the depths of the Ural mountains.

It was always Russia, wasn’t it?

In every spy movie ever made, there was always a scene up a snowy mountain, somewhere in Russia.

Aaron hadn’t thought cliche was Robert’s style, but this is where he’d tracked him down to - a log cabin in the depths of the Ural mountains. Hardly the most creative place to hide, but after two years of searching for Robert, Aaron didn’t much care - he’d finally found him, and that’s what mattered.

Finally, they were at the end of a very long, complicated story.

Robert Sugden, the crowing glory of the organisation. He’d joined her Majesty’s Secret Service at eighteen, and he’d been recruited into the secret service of the secret service at twenty one.

They didn’t have a name.

A name meant admitting they existed, admitting there was a layer of secrecy and spying that went deeper than the MI5 everyone knew about. You could search through every piece of legislation, everything pertaining to MI5, and you’d never find a single mention of the organisation Aaron worked for - not even an illusion to its existence.

They were the black ops of the British secret service.

Robert Sugden had been the golden boy, once. He had more successful missions under his belt than Aaron had even been on, his career. He was ruthless, efficient, everything a secret agent should be.

A real life James Bond.

Until he’d gone rogue.

Robert had been sent on a mission to Crimea, and he’d missed his first check in, and then his second, and then they’d sent Aaron in, to find him, and then they’d discovered he’d gone rogue.

Defected.

Aaron remembered the exact moment he’d been told to call off the search. He’d been so determined to find him, had been so convinced Robert must have been kidnapped, that there was no way Robert would betray their country, betray him.

He’d been wrong.

Aaron had been standing on a street corner in Crimea when the call had come through.

Robert Sugden, gone rogue.

He’d barely held himself together long enough to get back to the apartment he was staying in, and Aaron had cried his heart out.

And then he’d gotten mad. Aaron had gone mad, and angry, and downright furious, furious Robert could have gone and done something like this out of the blue, operating as a lone operative.

The one thing they’d both hated so much.

“Have you called for backup yet?” Robert asked, inclining his head slightly. He didn’t look the slightest bit phased, by his capture, looking as though being tied to a chair by a former co-worker who was on orders to bring him back to London, dead or alive, was just a casual Tuesday afternoon out.

Aaron brushed his fingers over his communications unit, hesitant. If he called for backup, he’d have the cabin being swarmed with agents in a matter of hours. There was a plane in Tokyo, they’d probably call, and that would be it, that would be the end of the search.

But he hadn’t done it yet.

Aaron wanted answers, first.

“You haven’t, have you? Because you’re curious,” Robert looked stupidly gorgeous, dressed all in black, the colour stark against his pale skin. He had good equipment, that had been the first thing Aaron noticed when he'd finally captured him - better equipment that Aaron even had, if he was being honest.

Aaron kept his expression neutral. “Why would I be curious?” he asked. “I know the facts here, you’ve gone rogue.”

“Don’t you want to know why?” Robert was too calm, a kind of calm that had Aaron on edge. He’d worked with Robert so many times, over the years, had been in impossible situations with no-one except Robert by his side.

(There was a particular incident in Colombia Aaron would never, ever forget, where Robert managed to get them free of a gang who’d decided their gruesome murder would make for a good message to the British government with nothing more than a penknife and a flare.)

Robert was too good a spy, Aaron decided.

Even if he was seconds from death, he never showed fear, and it made him impossible to read, especially in situations like this. It made Robert a good ally, and a terrible enemy - and thats what they were now, enemies.

Thats why Aaron should call for backup.

But they’d worked alongside each other for so many years now, Aaron couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Not without answers.

“I’ll tell you, you know,” Robert said, voice calm, and level. “I’d tell you why, if you hold off on calling that backup.”

“How do I know you haven’t called backup of your own?” Aaron voiced his fear. Robert had been his mentor, when Aaron had been recruited to black ops - he’d taught Aaron everything they knew, and that’s what made them such a brilliant and terrible match.

Brilliant, because Aaron knew the sort of moves Robert would make, would know how to track the older man down.

Terrible, because they fought the same way - they fought the same way because Robert had trained Aaron up to be everything he was as an agent, from tactics to how they threw punches.

He wasn't sure which of them would win, if it came down to a physical fight.

Aaron liked to think he was the stronger of the two, but Robert was clever - he would have kept a few of his cards close to his chest, wouldn’t have told Aaron everything when they’d carried out all those missions together.

If there was anything Robert had taught him, and taught him well, it was not to undermine his opponent.

Robert was the last person Aaron would undermine.

“You don’t,” Robert replied, giving Aaron a curious look. “You’re just going to trust me, aren’t you? The same way I’m trusting that you haven’t already called back-up.”

Aaron clenched his fist, forcing himself to take steadying breaths in and out.

“Except you wouldn’t call for backup, would you?” Robert looked as though he’d just come to a startling realisation. “You’d kill me before you let them take me in for questioning.”

Aaron wasn’t sure how to answer.

Yes? Yes, of course I’d kill you first? It was hardly the appropriate course of action, when facing down a rogue ex-coworker, but Aaron had seen first hand what the organisation did to rogue agents if they were captured.

Robert knew too many state secrets for his own good.

Even after everything, even after all Aaron had gone through because of Robert defecting, he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to put Robert in handcuffs and take him back to headquarters.

Death would be kinder, and Robert knew it.

“I appreciate that, you know,” Robert said, sounding completely genuine. “You still care, even after everything.”

Aaron fixed him with a withering look. “I thought you were going to tell me why you’ve gone rogue, not sit here and drag up the past,” he commented, sitting down across from Robert.

It was funny, really, how many times Aaron had sat in this exact position with someone they’d captured, ready to interrogate - but this wasn’t a familiar face from a file given to him by their supervisor, this was a familiar face because it was Robert.

It made it feel different.

“It’s because of the past, isn’t it?” Robert said, rolling his shoulder slightly. “God, I’ve forgotten how tightly you always tie cuffs, no wonder our interrogations always went so well - and well, everything else.”

Aaron gave him a warning look. “Robert.”

“Sorry,” Robert grinned. “Old habits die hard, what can I say?”

Aaron stood up suddenly, unable to quell the anger in his chest. “I don’t know why I’m even giving you the time of day,” he blurted out. “You’ve gone rogue, you betrayed our country, Robert. I shouldn’t - I shouldn’t be letting you talk like this.”

Robert fixed him with an intense stare. “But you’re letting me because you’re curious - a Sugden, gone rogue. Has that ever happened before?”

Aaron couldn’t help his smile. “You always did like to make history.”

Robert hummed agreement for a second, before he turned suddenly serious. “I wouldn’t have defected if I didn’t do it for the right reasons, Aaron,” he said. “I’ve given my life to this organisation, I’ve lost everything because of it. Do you think I would really have defected just because I got bored? I fancied a change?”

Aaron knew he was right. The Sugden family were a part of every single era of the organisation, from its beginnings during the war, until now. There was hardly an event in British history where a Sugden family member hadn’t done an undercover mission - Aaron knew of missions during the final days of the Cold War where Jack Sugden had been undercover in the depths of the Kremlin.

Robert was born and raised to be one of Her Majesty’s black ops agents - just like every Sugden that had come before him, just like Victoria, and Andy. It was the family business, and thats why Robert going rogue had been so shocking.

That’s why Aaron had wanted answers.

In all the years he’d worked with Robert, there had been nothing Robert had refused to do in the name of national security, and Aaron had learned to follow his lead. Maybe - maybe it made them bad people, but Aaron hadn’t signed up for the moral highroad when he’d become a black ops agent.

“Why did you do it then?” Aaron couldn’t help his curiosity, leaning against his now empty chair.

“I started to get suspicious, in Johannesburg,” Robert began, clearly happy he’d piqued Aaron’s curiosity enough to get him to ask questions. “Do you remember? That mission where we broke into the national archives?”

Aaron nodded. It had been about a year before Robert had gone rogue - a perfectly routine mission, break in, get the information, get out.

“Didn’t you question why we were doing it?”

“We had orders to.”

“Exactly,” Robert said. “We should have had at least gotten some background information on the mission, but we didn’t. That’s not how we’re supposed to operate, we’re an elite unit, and we have higher security clearance than anyone in the British government, Aaron - there’s nothing we shouldn’t know.”

Aaron let Robert’s words wash over him, thinking.

He knew more about the things the United Kingdom were doing politically than the Prime Minister. That’s how black ops worked - the government did the front of house, legitimate negotiation work, and black ops got their hands dirty, protecting national security, making sure the deals that needed to get done, got done.

“That was one mission,” Aaron found himself saying, not wanting to believe in Robert’s conspiracy just yet.

“But it wasn’t,” Robert shook his head. “It kept happening - Montreal, Nepal, Shanghai, Cairo - all half assed mission details, they were just fluffed out enough to not have us be suspicious.”

“But you noticed?”

Robert nodded slowly. “I - I heard rumours, in Tokyo, when I was infiltrating the mafia there.”

“What kind of rumours?”

“Corruption,” Robert said. “Dirty from the top down, apparently - the higher ups were bought off years ago, they’ve been doing dirty work for an organisation called The Firm ever since.”

The Firm?

God, Aaron’s life had really turned into a bad spy movie.

“I know,” Robert’s expression mirrored his own. “From what I know, they’ve been building up since the second world war, and they got a pretty good hold on world events in the late 1990s - they’ve got ties to terrorist organisations, and black ops squads like ours.”

Aaron felt the weight of the information Robert was giving him hit him like a tonne of bricks, and he couldn’t help but slouch into the chair opposite Robert, trying to read the other man’s expression.

Sincerity.

Aaron knew Robert’s masks, knew his every facade. This - this wasn’t the smooth talking Robert who got things done. This was the real Robert.

“Robert….”

“Hear me out, please,” Robert said. “I was recruited by an organisation called Cobra six months before I defected. They’re an international spy agency who formed after the Cold War, and they’re aiming to stop corruption.”

“An international organisation? Who’s remit are you even working under then?” Aaron couldn’t help his confusion.

Robert grinned. “That’s classified.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Aaron rolled his eyes. “Why - why are you even bothering to tell me this? Am I not just one of the bad guys to you now then?”

“You’re a lot of things to me, Aaron, but you’re not one of the bad guys,” Robert said, that stupid flirty smile that used to make Aaron weak at the knees back on his face, Robert looking far too confident and cocky for his own good.

“I caught you - I’ve been tracking you for years, Robert, and I caught you - it’s over,” Aaron shook his head, standing up again. “I don’t know why you're telling me all this, it’s over.”

“Is it?” Robert countered. “And you didn’t catch me, I let you catch me.”

Aaron raised an eyebrow. “Uh, get fucked, Robert - I caught you.”

Robert smirked. “Your tip off about the Ural mountains - didn’t you wonder where that came from?”

“A reliable source,” Aaron huffed.

“A reliable source I paid to give you the tip off,” Robert said. “I’ve been waiting here for you for days, Aaron. You were a little slower than I thought you’d be, honestly.”

  
“You realise you’re the one tied to a chair right now, yeah? Your mouthiness isn’t really helping,” Aaron snarled, realising he’d done the one thing he’d sworn to never do - he’d underestimated Robert.

Robert was quiet for a second. “Do you remember Columbia?”

Aaron was helpless to stop the blush that rose in his cheeks at Robert’s words. “Of course I remember Colombia,” he mumbled, closing his eyes as memories of that fateful mission came flooding back.

Three months working undercover with one of the major South American cartels, and three weeks trapped in a safe-house with only Robert for company - Robert’s hands on his hips, Robert’s lips against his, Robert’s tongue in his mouth.

It had been the first time they’d let themselves give in to the tension that had plagued their relationship for years, and Aaron hadn’t regretted it for a second. Despite the fear, despite being trapped in a safe-house with no escape, it had been okay - it had been okay because he’d had Robert, and that was all Aaron had ever needed.

(That realisation had hit even harder when Aaron had woken up to the news of Robert’s disappearance.)

“That was a good mission,” Robert hummed. “Wasn’t it?”

“Why are you doing this?” Aaron demanded, frustrations bubbling to the surface again. For two years, he’d struggled with his feelings for Robert, his anger, his worry, and now he was finally face to face with Robert again, it was all bubbling back to the surface. “Are you trying to manipulate me, or something? Get me onside so I’ll believe everything you’re saying?”

“I think you already believe me.”

Aaron remained silent.

If he’d learned anything, all his years working with Robert, it was not to give anything away.

“I could do that thing with my tongue you like again,” Robert smirked, pupils blown wide with lust as he spoke, his intentions clear. It was the kind of look Aaron used to love seeing, used to react to with equal want, equal need.

The kind of look that could change his mind in a split second.

“Don’t make me violate the Geneva convention, Robert,” Aaron sighed, twisting his communications unit in his hand.

“I wouldn’t mind being waterboarded if you were the only doing it,” Robert responded cheekily, trying to shrug, the cuffs he was still wearing not giving him much room for movement. “I was hoping you’d still have that gag we bought in Mexico handy.”

“You left me,” Aaron couldn’t keep the emotion out of his voice as he spoke, tears welling in his eyes. All the flirting, all the cheeky banter, it was too much - it was too much, considering the pain Aaron had carried for close to two years now, pain and heartbreak that had marred his every breath. “I loved you, Robert, and you left me.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” Robert’s facade was long gone now, the man Aaron had fallen in love with sitting in front of him now, the cocky spy long gone. “I’m sorry.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? You’re sorry?” Aaron shook his head. “I loved you so much, Robert.”

“Loved?” Robert’s voice was tiny, unsure.

“Love.” Aaron corrected himself, knowing he couldn’t lie about it. “I love you, Robert. But how does it change anything? You’re sitting here, telling me the organisation I’ve given my life to is corrupt. How am I supposed to react? Thank you for letting me know.”

Robert was quiet. “I gave everything to this organisation,” he said quietly. “My marriage - my birth mother, my mum.”

Aaron couldn’t help but wince.

Pat Sugden. Died while undercover in South Africa.

Sarah Sugden. Died in mysterious circumstances while on a mission in Southern Asia, location unknown - body never recovered.

“I gave it all willingly,” Robert continued. “Because I thought I was doing it all in the name of the crown, for Queen and country. Do you think it was easy, for me to realise we’ve been the bad guys all along? That everything I was doing was to bolster the strength of an international terrorist organisation?”

“It - it can’t be true,” Aaron shook his head in disbelief. “It can’t be.”

“I’m sorry, Aaron.”

Aaron fixed him with a stony glare. “I should have handed you in hours ago.”

Robert looked as if he'd accepted defeat. “If - if you’re going to do it, can I at least have one last kiss? For old times sake.”

Aaron looked at the man he’d loved so wholeheartedly, so deeply, the man he was so sure was the love of his life, and he was helpless to do anything except close the gap between them, coming to stand between Robert’s legs.

He wasn’t sure if he could do it, kill Robert - even if it was the right thing to do, considering what they did to rogue agents back home.

“Do you - do you think we were normal, and happy, in another life?” Aaron found himself asking, brushing Robert’s fringe out of his eyes - just like he used to, the kind of couple-y action that used to be such a comfort.

It was maybe the last time he’d ever get to do it.

“I don’t think we’d ever be normal, me and you,” Robert said, giving him a sad smile. “We could have been happy in this life, too, given the chance.”

Spying was hardly a profession that suited love, was it?

Not the kind of real, all consuming love they shared - love Aaron would have done anything to protect, to keep.

And now it was over.

“I love you,” Aaron said quietly, leaning in to press a kiss to Robert’s lips, the action slow, and languid, and familiar. Robert eagerly responded, kissing him like a dying man, like it was the last one he’d ever get.

(It probably was, Aaron noted.)

Except -

Except Aaron felt Robert’s hands on his body, a needle in his neck.

“I’m sorry,” Robert said, standing up, easily supporting both of their weights as whatever nerve agent he’d injected into Aaron’s neck took hold, rendering his limbs useless. “I love you, I’m sorry.”

“R-Rob,” Aaron couldn’t quite get his mouth to work, muscles spasming. He knew his eyes were wide with shock, tears that had been threatening to fall all evening streaming down his cheeks.

Why was he doing this?

What was he doing?

“You’ll thank me, I promise,” Robert reassured, a gentle hand on Aaron’s cheek, thumb brushing along his cheekbone. “I couldn’t let you go down with them, Aaron - and you’re too loyal for your own good. This was the only way I could get you out.”

The last thing Aaron saw before his vision went funny, and he passed out, was Robert’s discarded handcuffs on the floor of the cabin.

He’d -

Aaron had underestimated Robert, hadn’t he?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
